Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/30

 fore agreed on all hands that everyone should find out what he or she could do best, and stick to it. Jack Collins and two others were able to provide the whole company with as much fish and game as they could eat. Mrs. Collins was in great request in consequence of her skill in knitting, mending, and patching. One man, who had been a blacksmith, found that the best thing he could do was to melt down all pieces of old iron, copper, and other metals that were washed up with the wreck, and convert them into nails, saucepans, &c. He was also able to repair the damage done by the unskilful use of the carpenter's tools. Everyone, in fact, found that there was some way in which he or she could be more useful than in others. There were two children, who were always hard at work collecting firewood for the blacksmith and for cooking; and they also searched about on the shore for pieces of the wreck that had copper bolts in them, or any fragments of metal, which the smith was not long in converting into pots and pans.

There was one man who had been a passen-